Beretta APX: A Better Mousetrap?

The APX is a service-size 17-round modular 9mm with polymer frame. In taking their time to develop the pistol, Beretta was able to extensively poll military and law enforcement on what they liked about current offerings and what was missing.The striker-fired service handgun market is nothing if not crowded at the moment, and if you are going to wade in and hope to register, you’d better have a long list of features to lure shooters away from the entrenched platforms.

The usual and strongest complaints about the Glock include its sights, trigger, texturing and grip size, scant controls, and takedown procedure. If you look hard at the new Beretta, the APX boasts a list of features that overlay those exact items and offer a few additional perks for good measure.

Let’s face it: Current handguns have taken on a mostly utilitarian aesthetic. The APX follows this trend and is all business, with a slightly futuristic flair. If Stormtroopers carried secondaries to their main blasters, I could imagine them looking like an APX. This pistol stands out from the crowd.

I’ve seen a number of men and women with barely 5th percentile little hands react very positively to the grip and control they can achieve with the small backstrap in place.I tend to run the medium inserts on most pistols with sized backstraps, but had a definite preference for the large option on the APX, and even with it in place, the grip felt svelte for a 17-round, full-size handgun.

You can’t help but notice the aggressive serrations that run the length of the slide: They are pronounced and work exactly as they look like they would. No matter how or where you grab the slide, there is a deep ledge to grasp.

Positive is an understatement. In fact, they are so grabby that shooters who “ride” the slide a little after its full retraction may find that they need to consciously let go. The serrations work well under stress and I wouldn’t be surprised to see aftermarket copycat slides appear that apply this feature to other platforms.

The APX ships with three-dot steel sights that dovetail into the slide for windage adjustment. The front sight has a larger white dot that draws the eye in, and the rear notch has a nice wide opening and a ledge on the leading edge to ease one-handed manipulations.

These are good sights as is and, although sights are a personal-preference area and I don’t normally like three-dot arrangements, I prefer these to much of the standard fare that’s available.

I’ve shot a dozen plus of the pistols and found that Beretta goes to the trouble to ship the APX with the sights regulated—something that can be haphazard to non-existent with some competitors.

The scale consistently read 3.75 pounds from the wall and averaged 5.4 if you count the initial takeup. The trigger feel is unique, with the closest analogy being other striker guns that have had some good polishing and an aftermarket flat-faced trigger such as an Apex installed.In watching a dozen or so experienced shooters try the new Beretta on moderate pressure drills, I noticed none of the low and left impacts I would expect with an unfamiliar pistol. The flat face and relative position of the trigger to the firing hand seemed to encourage good hits.

The APX balances very well the need for a trigger that facilitates a clean break while providing enough resistance and travel to give a safety margin.

The natural concern for a feature such as this is whether the button can be accidentally depressed and render the holstered pistol “dead” until the slide is racked. It is possible, but I suspect highly unlikely based on its size, relative protection, and force required to depress.There is a takedown lever that operates similarly to the 92 series to remove the slide. The lever extends to the ejection port side as a large button that is depressed, then the lever can be rotated down on the inboard side to free the top end.

Once the slide is off, the serial numbered “chassis” that houses the trigger and frame rails can be removed. This is a simple affair: lift a retaining spring and drive out a single pin after removing the takedown lever. This chassis is legally the firearm per BATFE and, like the SIG 320, a shooter can easily swap the APX to other frames or slide assemblies.

The frames are already available in Black, OD Green, an Earth color, and Grey for about $50 each. This is an attractive option for those inveterate tinkerers who absolutely must stipple anything that comes within arm’s reach but whose “artistry” runs the ragged edge of ruining a frame.Beretta plans to release other calibers and eventually compact slides and frames that can all interchange with the serialized trigger unit.

DOWNRANGE

Beretta has a long-won reputation for accurate pistols, and the APX holds the line. The 4.25-inch barrel dumped five 115-grain Hornady American Gunner XTPs into 1.75 inches for the very first group I shot from a barricade at 25 yards. Hornady’s new 125-grain Steel Match loads laid down a 1.5-inch group. Black Hills’ new Honey Badger solid-copper carry loads clustered into 2.25 inches. The pistol shoots. The average across most loads was in the low two-inch range.

The quality trigger break makes that accuracy available on demand. In very little spin-up time, I was shooting my standard battery of drills at a level on par with customized Glocks and M&Ps and two horse lengths ahead of stock service guns.

The APX gobbled up steel plates at ten yards like candy. Super Vel’s Hush Puppy 147-grainers were clearing the rack at about 2.5 seconds. Stock service-gun times tend to be three to four tenths of a second slower for me.

I put the APX through the Five-Yard Roundup, a drill of four strings of 1.5 seconds each with as many hits as possible to an eight-inch circle from the holster, from the ready, strong-hand only, and then support-hand only.

My stock Glock 17 score averages 11 hits. The APX stacked up 14 hits in time with the Super Vel Hush Puppies. The pistol handles recoil well. While it doesn’t feel like the softest or “flattest” shooting pistol out there, the timer shows again that feelings are a poor indicator of performance. The combination of very good texture across the grip, quality trigger, and high-visibility sights allow the APX to “run.”

Most stock striker-fired guns can be shot pretty well in the ten-yard and nearer bracket, but let the shooter stray much farther and the trigger break begins to handicap best performance. The Achilles’ heel of the striker service auto is strong-hand-only at any distance.

After several substantial piles of Super Vel and Federal’s new polymer-coated Syntech, I felt ready to stretch out the APX for an acid test.

I had a Defense Targets Ready Ship Target, a reduced steel silhouette, at the berm and settled in at 42 yards. (I know, strange distance, but that’s where the shade was and the distance looked “pretty far.”) I decided to try strong-hand-only rapid-fire strings: five shots in ten seconds.

The first two attempts were each five for five with the Steel Match 125s. I was rightly pleased and impressed—that would be a steep climb with most stock service autos. I backed off the speed for a group and clanged into 4.75 inches at a 20-second cadence. As I said, the Italian auto shoots.

RELIABILITY

The APX gobbled up a wide range of brands, weights, and bullet profiles, all without complaint. I put about 900 rounds through one pistol and maybe 600 through another. Reliability is a built-in expectation in the service pistol market and, from what I’ve experienced and seen so far, the APX looks to check out fine.

It will take testing and/or adoption by multiple large agencies before we get a sense of how durable the platform is and what the replacement intervals for key components are. Initial indications are positive, and design features such as the dual recoil spring should help extend cycles between maintenance.

WHAT’S THE CATCH?

You’re not going to find piles of spare mags at clearance prices anytime soon, or maybe ever, for the new design. Holsters are available already, but variety and options will be dictated by marketplace acceptance. Ditto for aftermarket sights or other goodies.

The APX is a little wider than the market leaders, not a concern for a belt pistol, but it might be for those carrying in the waistband. The pistol has no loaded chamber indicator, the one omission in an otherwise feature-rich handgun.

Those items notwithstanding, the APX is among the first tier of candidates I’d round up to evaluate for an organizational sidearm. The Beretta is a solid option in a crowded market. With 500 years of gunmaking behind them, you expect as much.

Justin Dyal retired from the U.S. Marines as a Lt. Colonel with worldwide experience in specialized units. He has taught and been responsible for numerous advanced skills and weapons courses within multiple organizations.